Local advocates are both applauding and criticizing a change to national guidelines that allows gay and bisexual men to donate blood for the first time in 30 years.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced last week that gay and bisexual men would be permitted to donate blood as long as they’ve remained celibate for a year. Prior to the revision, any man who had sexual contact with another man — even once — since 1977 was issued a lifetime ban blocking them from giving blood.
The policy had been in place since the 1980s, when scientists and physicians had little understanding of HIV or AIDS, aside from the larger-than-average population of gay and bisexual men who contracted the conditions.
All blood donors, regardless of sexuality, are asked questions about behaviors that could put them at greater risk of contracting HIV or AIDS — including intravenous drug use and involvement with prostitution — but there is no policy requiring heterosexual people to abstain from sex before donating blood.
The FDA also requires all units of donated blood be test for multiple infectious diseases, including HIV.
New policy scrutinized
Rebecca Callahan, executive director of the Community AIDS Network and Akron Pride Initiative, described the policy change as “a step in the right direction.” But she said the policy still discriminates against men who have sex with men.
She said the new policy continues to treat homosexual relationships with stigma because even men in committed, monogamous relationships are barred from donating.
“Like many things, we’re moving in the right direction, but it still bothers me,” Callahan said. “I think that when we have policies like this in place, it reinforces discrimination.”
Callahan acknowledged data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows gay and bisexual men are at greater risk of contracting HIV and AIDS, but she said it’s unfair to assume at-risk men cannot engage in responsible, safe sex.
“Not all men who have sex with men are engaging in risky behavior,” she said. “We’re not telling the average youth — who also are at greater risk of contracting HIV — that they can’t donate blood just because they’re in their 20s.”
Scientific explanation
In its announcement last week, the FDA said the policy change was backed by science. FDA administrators said the change puts the U.S. policy in line with policies in the United Kingdom and Australia. Australia’s three states revised their policies from 1996 to 2000 — and the FDA said several published studies showed the guideline updates resulted in no change in HIV risk to the blood supply. No studies have been conducted for shorter deferral periods, the FDA said.
“In reviewing our policies to help reduce the risk of HIV transmission through blood products, we rigorously examined several alternative options, including individual risk assessment,” said Dr. Peter Marks, deputy director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in a statement. “Ultimately, the 12-month deferral window is supported by the best available scientific evidence, at this point in time, relevant to the U.S. population. We will continue to actively conduct research in this area and further revise our policies as new data emerge.”
The policy change was several years in the making. In 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Advisory Committee on Blood and Tissue Safety questioned the validity of the lifetime ban and recommended studies be conducted to confirm that a change was optimal. In November 2014, the committee considered results of several studies by various agencies and recommended a change.
In that same time period, online petitions collected thousands of signatures from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual advocates calling for change.
In a statement, the American Red Cross — which hosts blood donation drives across the country but is not associated with the FDA — said it could take several months for offices to update their questionnaires and to train employees to let gay and bisexual men donate.
Other advocate voices
Concerns about discrimination were echoed by Rabbi Emeritus David Horowitz, an Akron resident who once served as the national president of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
“This is big news in the LGBT community,” said Horowitz, who retired as rabbi of Temple Israel Akron in 2001. “But I think this is way overcautious. If you made it a month instead of a year, I think it would still be overcautious.”
He said studies have shown it only takes 10 days for HIV to show up in the bloodstream after someone has contact.
Horowitz said the new guidelines are positive change, but there’s still work to be done because members of the LGBT community are not treated the same as members of the straight community.
“We don’t do that for heterosexual people who certainly could have HIV-positive blood,” he said, “so we shouldn’t be doing this for homosexual or bisexual people.”
Nick Glunt can be reached at 330-996-3565 or nglunt@thebeaconjournal.com.